on speaking with you this morning,” he intoned, loudly enough for her guests to overhear. “Are you receiving visitors?”
She did adore her butler. “Yes, I’m much recovered this morning. Show them in, if you please.”
It struck her that while she enjoyed the theater, she’d never spared much thought for the actors and how fluidly they spun tales that were not their own. She had one of those to tell this morning, and her underlying nerves knew that while she did consider herself formidable, she’d never been fond of, or easy with, lying. This was for her son, though, for the precocious boy he’d been at seven and the admirable, honorable man he’d become at four-and-twenty.
“What is the meaning of this?” Victoria hissed, stalking into the room, the half-crushed page of the London Times in one hand.
Francesca scowled. “Some tea, Victoria?”
“I do not want tea. I want an explanation for this … nonsense! I demand one.”
“My dear,” Francesca returned, keeping her seat, “I’m afraid I’ve been under the weather for the past few days, and I do apologize for not consulting you on the wording, but referring to your daughter’s marriage to my son—the son of Lord Aldriss—as ‘nonsense’ begins to annoy me a little.”
Victoria snapped her mouth shut. “My daughter is engaged to Lord Hurst, as you well know. We announced it days ago.”
“Did you? That’s … peculiar. Are you certain someone wasn’t jesting with you?”
“What? I will not be … bamboozled into disbelieving my own decisions, Lady Aldriss. This is outrageous!”
“But if, as you say, Amelia-Rose is engaged to Lord Hurst, where is she?”
Charles Baxter put a hand on his wife’s arm. “We should sit, darling. There is a foul fog in the air, here.”
“My daughter … is unwell. She is at home, resting,” Victoria stated, but took a seat on the couch opposite Francesca.
“Your daughter,” Francesca returned, setting aside her book, “is in Gretna Green with my son. I asked them to wait for a church wedding, but they are young and impulsive, and couldn’t bear the idea of waiting for a special license or for the banns to be read. They took my coach, accompanied by Niall’s brothers and Jane Bansil. Surely you know this. Whoever is resting in your daughter’s bedchamber is not Amelia-Rose. If you don’t recognize your own child, I wonder if you—”
“No! This is not—I believe nothing you say!”
Stubborn, self-obsessed woman. “Very well,” Francesca said, dropping all pretense of bewilderment. “These are the facts before you. Your daughter has been missing for four days. As far as I know, you’ve told no one, which is fortunate. Amelia-Rose and Niall are in Gretna Green. I expect they will be wed by noon. His brothers are witnesses. Your daughter’s companion is not. She is nowhere near Scotland.”
“She—”
“Hush. Amelia-Rose is ruined. It’s happened; it’s done. Hurst wouldn’t have her now, whatever agreement you made with him. You, therefore, have a select few choices. You can cry to the heavens at what a horrible girl your daughter is, and let her ruin tear you down, as well. You can decry my son as a poacher and a heathen—which everyone knows he is, anyway, because he’s a Highlander. The scandal, the ruin, will be yours, and they will not be here to share it. I, on the other hand, will face almost no consequences. Everyone’s seen my wild sons. No one could hope to control them. And yet I am quite pleased to see him in love and married.”
Victoria opened her mouth again, but her husband squeezed her hand. “And the other choices?”
“There’s but one, actually. The notice you placed in the newspaper wasn’t actually done by you. It was some sort of jest, but until you discovered the villain you didn’t wish to say anything. We’ve known for better than a week that Niall and Amelia-Rose were going to marry. Being the young couple they are, they couldn’t tolerate the idea of waiting, and so with our mutual blessing they, hied themselves off to Niall’s native Scotland to wed.”
“No!” Victoria burst out, the newspaper shredding in her fingers. “No, no, no! I will not be a party to this! And neither will Lord Hurst!”
“I imagine Lord Hurst, who’s also been absent from London, will most happily claim that he had no knowledge of any engagement, and has no idea which rogue might have placed the announcement. If he wishes to disagree, I would be very interested to see how any ranting he does about losing a woman